A good use for a compass!

Until yesterday morning, set upon my Federal period card table, lost to all but the clearest eyed amongst the manifold accessories of a bar, was a boxed compass.  It was placed there not as an admonition for guests to be mindful of their own moral compass while imbibing ( As a good deal of my social friends are Episcopalians or Roman Catholic I've a one of a kind.printing block of the Virgin Mary set there for that purpose, the coo-coo clock above it reminds the rest) but more as a EUREKA you have found it end point!
 I purchased it two or three year's ago as a makeup joke present after my dearest friend and I had a row during a night of heavy drinking.  The evening ended with said friend attempting to walk the 70 miles home in flip flops.  A choice logical only to someone well marinated in top shelf French vodka.  I drove him home and after a day or two purchased the boxed compass from the Gumps catalog. My desire was to aide any future early morning travels by friend felt compelled to make.  Being a very handsome and fit former U.S.N. sailor I was very certain he'd never have a long wait to hitch a ride but that in the glow of bottled French potato juice, he might head south rather than north and find himself planted amongst the garlic fields of Gilroy rather the sweet smell of the northern Redwoods.  

The rows became more frequent, the jokes became harsher, edged with a deeply sad bitterness that comes when a loving friendship goes wrong. Our lives moved on and apart. The compass, left behind in the hurried train wreck of that was the end of the friendship, took on a new meaning as a conversation starting jest shared amongst the guests making use of a rather well stocked  bar in a well appointed and sober home.  It also silently reminded me of that dear lost friendship.  Time as told by the coo-coo clock upon the wall and measured by my eternally silent Dutch friend Jacobius, the mid 19th-century portrait of whom blesses all guests who gather in his corner, has a reassuring way of moving on.  Time which may indeed fly has also in that flight the magical ability to heal.  It cures us of many an arrogant folly and does heal all of even the deepest wounds.

So it was than to me in the regaining of the lost only to us two friendship.  I was able to return the compass to its owner, my dearest friend, yesterday afternoon. It guided me 50 miles north and more importantly had kept me company for the intervening two years with very happy memories of the wonderful times shared  with one of the best men I've ever known.  It also helped us find a quiet country lane where in the fullness of the moment we were able to enjoy the private moments of  reunion and the fruits of  forgiveness.  All told a very good purchase.